52-59 / BD 36-37, 71-72 Late Mizoguchi: Eight Films, 1951-56

[peerpee]

LATE MIZOGUCHI: EIGHT FILMS, 1951-1956



Kenji Mizoguchi looms over the history not only of Japanese cinema - but of world cinema altogether. These eight films from the last decade of Mizoguchi's career represent a collection of eight of his greatest works, which is to say, eight of the greatest films ever made.

Oyu-sama (1951) is an adapatation of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro: a poignant tale of two sisters and their ill-fated relationship with the same man: a tale of the social mores and affairs of the heart that might destroy siblings.

Ugetsu monogatari (1953), a ghost-tale par excellence and one of the most highly acclaimed works of the cinema, is an intensely poetic, sublimely lyrical tragedy of men lured away from their wives which consistently features on polls of the best films ever made.

Gion bayashi (1953) is a drama set in the world of the geisha, a subtle masterwork that yields a myriad of insights into the lives of Japan's "service-class" in the early '50s.

Sansho dayu (1954), aka Sansho the Bailiff, recounts an unforgettably sad story of the 11th century involving kidnapping and indentured servitude - and figures, again, with its exquisite tone and purity of emotion as one of the most critically revered films of any era.

Uwasa no onna (1954), another Mizoguchi picture set in a modern geisha house, pits mother against daughter, with the ensuing drama forcing both to confront their attitudes toward family and business in what is one of the filmmaker's most astute filmic examinations of oppressed femininity.

Chikamatsu monogatari (1954), aka The Crucified Lovers, is the tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant's wife and her husband's employee, was hailed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa as "a great masterpiece that could only have been made by Mizoguchi."

Yokihi (1955), aka The Princess Yang Kwei-fei, recounts an 8th-century Chinese story of a widowed emperor and his imperial concubine, filmed in sumptuous, hallucinatory Agfa-stock colour.

Akasen chitai (1956), aka Street of Shame, is Mizoguchi's final masterpiece and one of the greatest last films ever made, depicting the goings-on in a Tokyo brothel carrying the name "Dreamland," where dreams are nevertheless shattered beneath the weight of financial necessity and all questions of conscience - a last testament which inspired the great French critic Jean Douchet to proclaim: "For me, along with Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux and Renoir's La Règle du jeu, the greatest film in the history of the cinema."

SPECIAL FEATURES

New high-definition 1080p transfers of all eight films
• Optional English subtitles
• Tony Rayns video discussions on each of the eight films
• Original trailers
• 344-page book
• Limited edition of 2000

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This thread is only for discussion of the release of the 8-film boxset. Please refer to the individual threads for these releases if you wish to make comments about the films themselves:

52-53 / BD 36 Ugetsu monogatari + Oyū-sama

54-55 / BD 37 Sanshō dayū + Gion bayashi

56-57 / BD 71 Chikamatsu monogatari + Uwasa no onna

58-59 / BD 72 Akasen chitai + Yokihi

[Subbuteo]

Oh what a start to 2007

[a.khan]

4 films in the boxset? What are the other ones?

Will it come with a book? (Ofcourse.)

Impressive transfer. Nice work.

[Caligula]

Nick, when can we expect this set (very much looking forward to this)?

[What A Disgrace]

Wow, what great news to wake up to. I'm seeing Sansho, myself, in a few hours at a nearby arty theater, so its also fairly weird at the same time.

Judging by MoC's preference to chronological order, and the fact that the contents of these two volumes are already known, I would say Sansho follows Miss Oyu, Ugetsu, and Gion Music Festival in the box. But that's just a guess.

But the understanding, now, is that there are five other titles to be released in a Mizoguchi set...and of the five films released after Sansho, MoC only has access to four. I suppose that is a topic for the speculation board, or something for Nick to address right here as we speak.

[TheGodfather]

That looks great! looking forward to this set. I already own the Criterion release of Ugetsu, MoC will have to do a superb job to beat that edition.

[kinjitsu]

4 films in the boxset? What are the other ones?

Some of the films to be released in 2007:

Miss Oyu

Ugetsu Monogatari

Goin Festival Music

Sansho Dayu

The Woman of Rumour

Chikamatsu Monogatari

The Empress Yang Kwei Fei

Street of Shame

[Sanjuro]

These are all the films remastered and released in Japan recently in the two Daiei box sets except for Shin Heike Monogatari. Was there any reason for leaving this out? (apart from it not being as good as the others).

[bluesea]

Do you mean that Shin Heike Monogatari with Raizo Ichikawa was released in DVD recently? My understanding is that it was a multi-part series that never made it to DVD. Being based on the Yoshikawa novel, it might not quite fit in with what most Mizoguchi aficionados normally look for, but having a copy of part 1, I truly wish for the complete set.

[King of Kong]

Will this be a good blind buy? I bought the Criterion Ugetsu when it came out and while I enjoyed the film, I felt that it didn't quite equal Ozu or Kurosawa at their best. How does Sansho stack up against Ugetsu?

[Scharphedin2]

You can't go wrong!

There are some comments on this and other Mizoguchi films in the Mizoguchi thread. Sansho is an incredibly moving and beautiful film.

If you like classic Japanese films in general, and you enjoyed Ugetsu, then this is indeed a blind buy. I purchased Sansho and other Mizoguchi films last year from a French label, but you can be sure that I will get this set anyway (there will be films available in this set not before released with English subs, and the transfers will be a vast improvement, if the stills above can be trusted).

[bluesea]

Will this be a good blind buy? I bought the Criterion Ugetsu when it came out and while I enjoyed the film, I felt that it didn't quite equal Ozu or Kurosawa at their best. How does Sansho stack up against Ugetsu?

Hard to choose, and its also a problematic comparison between Kenji and Akira, the latter (in my opinion) being much more accessible to western sensibilities.

[Michael Kerpan]

I would say Sansho is definitely better than Ugetsu overall (though some of the sequences of Ugetsu are utterly gorgeous). I much prefer Chikamatsu monogatari (Crucified Lovers) to either (when it comes to M's historical films).

[King of Kong]

The thing that ultimately bugged me about Ugetsu - beautiful to look at and haunting as it was - were the plot contrivances and melodramatic elements (the samurai subplot and the neat resolution - it seems this Mizo was under studio pressure). I guess that's why I find Ozu so refreshing - he doesn't really rely on either.

[daniel p]

While I thought Sansho was an incredibly touching film, I still prefer Ugetsu. I found Ugetsu to be one of the most beautiful and lyrical films I've seen. Perhaps reading up on Sansho ruined my initial viewing slightly (ever so slightly).

Having said that, both of them are still among my favourite films of all time.

I wonder which of these titles Criterion has in their sights? If any (other than Sansho).

Can't wait for this box... and Volume Two... and Naruse Volume Two...

[Michael Kerpan]

One needs to remember that many of Mizoguchi's films were based on fairly well-known literary or dramatic sources. In films like Sansho and Crucified Lovers, his audiences would have come into the theater with a basic knowledge of the plot. As with the ancient Athenian dramatists, it is the manner of presentation that matters most with Mizoguchi (not plots -- or Hollywood-style "suspense").

[King of Kong]

Yeah - fair call - the plot of Ugetsu is rather schematic, but I guess it's understandable given the source materials.

[HerrSchreck]

IMO if one is not engaged at any point of one's life with the sensation of picking up on the vibe of the memories of so many lives which have travelled the same roads, physical and metaphorical, as ones own, saluted the humanity of their vanished errors and their vanished triumphs, boredoms, strains, terrors, etc etc, and pondered on the vague and very melancholic sense of communing somehow with that past with all it's unredeemed errors, then certainly one is going to miss what to me and others is the paramount beauty of UGETSU MONOGATARI: beyond the Murnau/Sternbergian photographic lyricism of the images in the haunted castle, on the lake, beyond the pathos of the suffering of the characters and the limpid beauty of the mise en scene, is the poetic triumph of the ending. Really in my mind the crown jewel of the film is it's final haunted monologue of the vaguely hazy interaction of the dead and the living, the attempt to make sense of the separation and it's attendant confusion via terrible decisions and random circumstance. The ending of the film to me, more than any other, captures the feeling one gets when walking through an old and busy land filled with disappeared dramas, and the sense of the dead hanging vaguely-- but not really, but then again...-- over the scene, creating a feeling, not really haunted, but somehow melancholic and enjoyable at the same time. That sad sense of finding peace with answerlessness. Life itself, very simply.

This haunted equanimity with the facts of life and death truly soak the film from beginning to end, and those not predisposed to pick up on it are going to simply study the photography and mise en scene and be slightly baffled over all the hubub "...lyrical film ever made etc".

[HerrSchreck]

One point I'd take exception to is the sense that this is all personally felt-- the sense of the innate sensitivity to one's elders, one's smallness in a large universe, and one's lack of importance versus the felt maelstrom of time immemorial and All Human Life Gone Before (resulting in a deeprooted automatic respect for one's elders, whereas we chuck our elders into nursing homes & forget about them) is very innate in Japanese custom and completely alien in Western. The routes to quiet harmony, equanimity and respect for basic facts which occidentals generally go down in flames kicking and screaming versus (causing them to be ego-bound and loud rather than humble and desirous to be seen as quiet) are so ingrained in Japanese culture and life (in the sense that western philosophy & christianity are rooted in western) that the mise en scene & decoupage operates in a very oriental mode of spiritual expression and points of sensitivity, with "consciously beautiful" mise en scene and decoupage functioning as mood enhancers and point-drivers.

The point I'm trying to make is in Ozu & Mizo one finds sensitivities to ideas of "ancestry" "ghosts" "humility" "finding peace in disorder" etc-- as I outlined in my above post-- that are patently reminiscent of the Taoist/Buddhist awareness and contemplation of elders, the deceased, and equanimity that flavor Japanese culture. Present day breakdancers & westernized Asshole Culture excepted of course.

[jt]

David, with respect, that sounds like quite a large spoiler in your post. I haven't seen Sansho yet and am hoping to forget what I just read before this comes out...

[bluesea]

I could wish that The 47 Ronin was a solid proposition for the future.

[jt]

No worries. I agree that the Mizo's and Ozu's that I have seen have been richer experiences through repeat viewings but I still like the emotional impact of a first viewing before delving too deep into the layers beneath the plot.

It does seem though that as time marches by, I care less about the plot and more about the filmic language; more time thinking "what was the director doing here?" rather than "why did that character do that?" even on my first viewings.

Maybe the day will come where I read the full synopsis before watching a film so I can get straight into analysis but I kind of hope it doesn't, at least for a while...

[jt]

even if I havent given anything of the depth of narrative complexity away in Sansho. Believe me!

I do believe you! I remember being worried that knowing that Humanity and Paper Balloons starts and ends with suicides might dampen my viewing experience. (Of course, it had no effect whatsoever, how could could anything spoil a film so perfect?)

I suppose I'm still scarred by a UK TV host giving away the twist in the Sixth Sense as a 'joke' the day I was due to watch it. Of course, I appreciate that there's a world of difference between the two examples.

I suppose I can only say as an older viewer a lot of things revsitied are disappointing while others are revelatory

Reading this was a small revelation. I have never thought much about why some repeat viewings of films I loved first time round are so satisfying whereas some are so disappointing, other than a very simplistic idea of their relative 'depth'.

Thinking now, I realise it has more to do with why I enjoyed the film in the first place; if it was for its narrative, enjoyment diminishes over time. If it is for its form, repeat viewings are a constant joy.

Hardly rocket science but it should help me cut down on my 15 minute 'which film' ritual each night...

The real argy bargy about Sansho begins with a discussion of the male/female constructs in Mizo! Then we can have fun!!

I look forward to it...

[a.khan]

I suppose I can only say as an older viewer a lot of things revsitied are disappointing while others are revelatory

Reading this was a small revelation. I have never thought much about why some repeat viewings of films I loved first time round are so satisfying whereas some are so disappointing, other than a very simplistic idea of their relative 'depth'.

Thinking now, I realise it has more to do with why I enjoyed the film in the first place; if it was for its narrative, enjoyment diminishes over time. If it is for its form, repeat viewings are a constant joy.

The most meaningful insight on film I've read anywhere in the last week. (Cynics of my presumed reading preferences -- bit tongue!) Really enjoyed this conversation between david and jt.

[Matango]

I'd be interested to know if the Ugetsu print that MoC has been given has the same apparent crossfade error as that seen on the Criterion edition in the opening shot.